Alicization Uniting Page 7

  But the pontifex didn’t express any anger at Alice’s bold castigation. If anything, her lips curled with entertainment. Instead, it was Prime Senator Chudelkin—who was hiding under the bed for some reason—whose hideous screeching voice rent the air.

  “S-s-sileeeeence!!”

  He hurtled out of the hanging sheet and performed a series of somersaults before popping to his feet. He wobbled a bit from all the rotation but recovered to express his full indignation in the space between us and the pontifex.

  His red-and-blue outfit was torn to shreds, and the poison gas he’d used on the previous floor was gone, thanks to Alice’s Perfect Weapon Control of the Osmanthus Blade. That skill had split the blade into hundreds of tiny pieces that whirled into an astonishing storm of petals that were meant to help us escape Eugeo’s ice—Chudelkin got caught in the aftermath only because he came chortling down from the ceiling at the right time.

  As usual, his slipperiness was impressive. Despite the damage to his clothes, he retreated without suffering much injury himself, but now, on the top floor, there was no escape. With the mighty Administrator behind him, however, he was bold again, throwing his hands into the air and then jutting both pointer fingers at Alice.

  “Why, you half-broken little toy knight! Your duty?! To protect?! How you make me laugh! Hohhhh-hoh-hoh-hoh-hohhhhh!!”

  He did a little spin, causing the tattered shreds of his clothing to lift up into the air, exposing striped red-and-blue underpants. Then he put his hands on his hips and stuck out his left foot at her this time. “You knights are nothing more than puppets that act on my command!! If I tell you to lick my boot, you will lick it! If I say that you are my steed, you will carry me on your back!! That is the duty you knights are blessed to have!!”

  He lost his balance and nearly toppled over backward due to his massive head, but the wild swinging of his arms helped him stay on his feet.

  “More importantly,” he continued, “the idea that the knighthood is destroyed is absolute poppycock! Less than ten overall, including the worthless old Number One and Two, were damaged at all! In other words, I have more than twenty pawns still remaining! One single member mouthing off does not even begin to affect the ironclad rule of the Church, you hideous, shining wench!!”

  Ironically, the clown’s vulgar insults succeeded only at calming Alice’s nerves. She was back to her sharp, rational nature. With a shake of her head, she said, “You are the fool here, scarecrow. Are there brains in that oversize head of yours, or just straw and scraps of cloth?”

  “Wha…whaaaaa—?!”

  The blood rushed to his crimson head until he was fully purple. But before he could scream whatever came to his mind, Alice icily continued, “Of the remaining twenty knights, half of them are immobile at the moment, due to the pontifex’s so-called reset to modify their memories with sacred arts. And the other half are on their dragons, fighting at the End Mountains. You cannot call them back here now. If you did, the forces of darkness would immediately pile through the caves in the north, west, and south parts of the mountains, as well as the Eastern Gate, and cause the Axiom Church’s rule to crumble.”

  “Nng…hrrgg…!”

  Chudelkin’s face was now turning from purple to black. But Alice wasn’t done yet.

  “In fact, it is already crumbling. Those ten knights and their dragons cannot fight forever. But the cathedral no longer has any knights in reserve to replace them. Or will you venture into the Dark Territory yourself, Chudelkin, and bravely battle with the fearsome dark knights?”

  I couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious about that remark. The backup knights—like Eldrie and Deusolbert and the Four Whirling Blades—had just been hospitalized because of Eugeo and me.

  Still, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Chudelkin’s head reaching the limit of its internal pressure.

  “Mwa-hohhhhh!! You—you—you sneaky little—!! Do you think you’ve gotten the better of us with that, you miserable whelp?!” he screamed, like a kettle letting off steam, his feet stomping the floor in a childish tantrum. “As punishment for this absolute insolence, you’ll be sent to the mountains for three years once you’ve been reset! Oh, but before all of that, I’ll keep you for my personal plaything!!”

  He began to screech about exactly the sorts of things that he would force Alice to do, until a word from Administrator behind him instantly shut him up.

  “…Hmm.”

  He went stock-still and silent, his face returning to its original color. The pontifex ignored him and turned to Alice. “No, it doesn’t seem to be a logic-circuit error. And your Piety Module is still functional…Does that mean you independently removed the Code 871 that was installed for me…? And not just on a sudden emotional burst…?”

  What is she talking about? I wondered, scowling. Installed? By whom…? Code Eight-Seven-One…?

  The silver-haired young woman was not forthcoming with more information, however. She swept the hair hanging on her shoulders back and changed gears. “Well, I won’t know any more than that without a good analysis. Now, Chudelkin…I am a generous person, so I will give you an opportunity to improve your now miserable reputation. Use your abilities to freeze those three. You can reduce their life to, oh, let’s say twenty percent.”

  When she was done speaking, she waved her right pointer finger. Instantly, the massive bed beneath her feet rumbled into rotation. My eyes bugged out.

  Like an enormous screw, the forty-foot-wide bed began to descend into the floor. Chudelkin squealed and darted away from it.

  Eventually, the entire bed had fit itself snugly into the floor, even the hanging canopy, such that there was nothing but carpet with a large circle drawn on it. A moment later, Administrator descended to the floor without a sound.

  On a sudden whim, I glanced down at my own feet and saw that there was a similar circle in the carpet where the levitating disc had brought us up. I guessed that the room must be designed so that everything extended and retracted into the floor that way, but a glance around the room revealed that there was only one other circle, a small one on the far wall across from us. I couldn’t begin to guess what it contained.

  Once the bed was gone, the top floor of the tower seemed shockingly vast.

  The circular walls were all made of perfectly unblemished, crystal clear glass, meaning that only the golden pillars supported the domed ceiling. The dome was decorated with art that seemed to be depicting the genesis of the world, and crystals affixed all over the display blinked and glimmered like stars.

  What did surprise me was the sword-themed golden decorations that adorned all the pillars. The smaller ones were still over three feet long, and the longest nearly ten. The hilts were quite small, though, so it was clearly impossible to pull them off the wall and use them as weapons. The edges didn’t look very sharp, either.

  Otherwise, the hundredth floor of the cathedral was the worst kind of place to fight someone who could cast sacred arts: wide open with nothing to hide behind. I put weight into my right foot, preparing to leap forward on Chudelkin before he could start chanting.

  But before I could execute my plan, Alice shook her head. “It’s dangerous to just charge in. The pontifex will have an art that can capture us alive if she simply touches us. The reason she allowed Chudelkin to go first is undoubtedly to give herself a better chance to make contact with us.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Eugeo whispered, the first thing he’d said in ages, “I have a feeling that she chose not to kill me, when she certainly could have. And when the prime senator turned Bercouli to stone, he was riding on him…touching him directly.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding. “So it works on contact with the target.”

  Propelled attack arts like fireballs or ice blades notwithstanding, any kind of art that had a specific target, as a general rule, required that the caster make contact with that target, even if just on the leg or foot. It was one of the fundamental rules of the sacred arts
that any novice at the academy would learn.

  In other words, as long as we didn’t let Chudelkin or Administrator actually touch us, we didn’t have to worry about falling prey to that horrifying petrification ability. But at the same time, that meant we couldn’t get within sword-swinging range.

  That ultimately left us at a disadvantage. In terms of sacred arts, Eugeo and I were nothing compared to Alice, and in a battle of long-distance attacks, even the three of us together were likely to get outgunned against the prime senator.

  I bit my lip, thinking hard. Eugeo continued, “Plus…the pontifex has a full-body—”

  Whatever he was trying to say got cut off by Chudelkin, who sprang up from his sitting position. “Hoh-hoh-hohhh!”

  We took fighting stances in reaction. He gave us a suddenly very nasty smile, then turned back to his commander and simpered, “You can flatten those three little dung beetles with the press of your pinky finger, Your Holiness, yet you bestowed upon me the honor and pleasure of dealing with them! I might cry! I do believe I shall!! Hoo-goo, hoo-goo-goo-goo…”

  Sure enough, sticky tears began gushing from the corners of his eyes, forming large droplets that tumbled off his cheeks. It was sickening.

  Even Administrator seemed tired of dealing with him. She backed away about twenty feet and said impatiently, “Fine. Just do it.”

  “Yeh-heh-hes, Your Holiness! I shall undertake every last effort to meet your satisfactiooooon!”

  He pushed both thumbs into his temples as if there were buttons there, and his tears instantly stopped. The little clown leered at us and continued, “Now, now, now…You will not get off with simple apologies. No, I’ll be grinding down nearly all of your life before I finally allow you to sob and beg on your knees. Are you ready for that? Are you sure?”

  “…I’m tired of listening to your nonsense. Just do your worst already. Like I said on the floor below, I’m ready to cut that filthy tongue clean out of your hideous mouth,” snapped Alice, who was not one to lose the war of words. She squeezed the hilt of her sword and widened her stance.

  About fifty feet away, Chudelkin took an odd stance of his own, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  “Ohhhhhh, you’ll get it now!! If you want my beautiful, perfect tongue, you’ll have it—sliding all over your body, once I’ve frozen you in solid ice!! Hwaaaaa!!” he screamed, and launched himself into a magnificent leap, performing a one-and-a-half backflip with a full twist and landing hard. Not on his feet or his hands but on the top of his head.

  “……”

  Neither I, Eugeo, nor Alice said a word. Yes, it made sense that with his enormous head and spindly body, the prime senator would find it more stable to be situated upside down, but what was he going to do now that he was stuck there?

  But Chudelkin maintain a firmly serious expression—as far as I could tell, since it was hard to read it upside down—extended his arms and legs, and screeched, “System…Caaaaall!!”

  Alice promptly drew her blade. Eugeo and I took stances as well, though we weren’t sure what to do yet.

  “Generrrate Crrryogenic Element!!” he cried, enthusiastically rolling his r’s.

  The power and scale of a long-range attack art could be narrowed down to a fairly specific window based on the number of elements that were initially generated. I watched closely, determined to spot exactly how many little ice lights appeared in his fingers.

  Paaam!! Chudelkin clapped his hands together and spread them wide, still upside down. At the ends of his fingers, thrumming softly, were ten little motes of blue light.

  “Damn, the maximum,” I cursed, but it wasn’t unexpected. I was barely more than a beginner, and even I could generate five elements at a time on one hand if I focused hard enough. Chudelkin was the greatest caster in the Axiom Church after Administrator, so making five on each hand would be second nature to him.

  Alice didn’t move, but I took a step to the right and held up my off hand in order to generate the opposing heat elements. Eugeo took the exact same stance. If we each made five, perhaps we could defend ourselves against Chudelkin’s ice…

  But right as I was about to give the command, there was another dry paaam!!

  It was Chudelkin, this time smacking his bare feet together. Then he spread his legs wide until they were straight lines along with his arms. With the sound of dewdrops falling, ten little ice elements appeared over the tips of his toes.

  Eugeo’s hoarse whisper spoke for the both of us.

  “…You gotta be…kidding me…”

  With twenty elements in total now floating off his hands and feet, Chudelkin’s upside-down mouth curved into a huge grin.

  “Oh-ho, oh-ho-ho-ho-ho…Very frightened, are we? Peeing our pants just a little, hmm? If you assumed I was no different from any of those measly arts casters, you were very wrong.”

  The Underworld’s concept of sacred arts—in short, magic—was confined by vocal commands and the imagination of the caster. For example, in the act of performing healing arts, any hostility toward the target in the heart of the caster would dramatically lessen the effectiveness of the healing. But if one prayed with all one’s being for recovery, the results might actually surpass the privilege level of the caster.

  Elemental attack arts worked the same way. Vocal commands—the sacred words—were not enough to alter the shape of the generated elements. They had to be linked to the image in the caster’s mind for guidance.

  That image was a finger. From the start to the very end of the process, the caster had to focus on the mental image of each element, connected to each finger. For this reason, even the most advanced of users could only control ten elements with ten fingers. In order to break that limit and utilize the toes for this mental image as well, you’d either have to be floating in the air off your feet somehow—or balanced on your head such that all the limbs were free. Just like Prime Senator Chudelkin.

  “Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho!” he screamed, and started chanting the element-activation command at ultrahigh speed as we stood dumbfounded. First he thrust his right hand toward us, then his left.

  “Dischaaaaaargeuh!!”

  Shoom! Five icicles shot forth, rending the air in a vortex of chill. Cold on their heels came another five.

  There was no escape. Two fanning spreads of ice spears, high and low, covered every angle. The only way out was to knock down the spears that would hit us, so I squeezed my sword hilt and focused—

  Golden glimmering covered my sight.

  Alice had swiped the Osmanthus Blade sideways, disintegrating the tip into a multitude of little shards that spun and danced through the air. It wasn’t the first time we’d seen Alice’s Perfect Weapon Control, but it still succeeded in taking our breath away with its beauty.

  The only light illuminating the top floor of Central Cathedral was the moonlight coming through the windows on the southern side. But the golden petals reflected it as though they were glowing with their own light as they swarmed, creating a thick, dense meteor shower.

  “Haaah!” Alice cried, swinging the hilt, which was all that was left in her hand.

  The storm of petals swooped in coordination with her action, enveloping the ten icicle spears and filling the air with a tremendous grinding sound. It was as though she’d tossed ice cubes into a high-powered mixer on liquefy; in moments, Chudelkin’s spears had been reduced to sherbet, melting harmlessly into the air and expending their magical resources.

  “Hnng…grrrrrrng!!” the little man grunted, grinding his teeth as he witnessed his confident attack being completely nullified. “Don’t think you’re so special just because of your stupid little grater!” he howled. “How do you plan to handle this?! Hohhhhh!!”

  He swung his feet, still holding ten elements of their own, from the sides to a raised position. The ice elements rose in parallel toward the ceiling, where they met and formed a square crystal block.

  The ice grew and grew with a series of heavy booms, until it formed a solid cu
be about seven feet to a side. But its transformation didn’t stop there; vicious spikes grew on every surface.

  If the physical rules of the Underworld were the same as real life, the cube of ice up above had to weigh a good seven tons. Judging on the spot that it would be impossible to stop that with swords alone, I fell back a step.

  “Hoh-hee-hee…How do you like that? Just one step before my ultimate sacred art!! Get ready to be flattennned!!”

  From his headstand position, Chudelkin lowered his upright legs to a forward position. The spiked die made of ice came hurtling downward with a deafening rush.

  Eugeo and I jumped sideways, desperate to get out of the way. But once again, Alice did not show an ounce of hesitation. She stared down the massive object that was about to crush her to a pulp, not moving a muscle…

  “Haaaaaaaaah!!”

  With the loudest and fiercest cry she’d made in any fight so far, Alice thrust the hilt of her sword high.

  The storm of golden shards floating around her collected into a sharp formation with a crisp cha-king! They formed a huge cone about ten feet tall with the pieces arranged outward into fierce spikes. The formation spun as the block of ice descended upon it.

  When the two objects collided, the vast chamber was filled with a show of sound and light that was both deafening and blinding, all at once.

  “Krrrnngggg…Crush…them…flaaaaaat!”

  “…Break it apart…flowers!!”

  The prime senator and the Integrity Knight screamed, polar opposites of beauty and ugliness, both twisted with ferocious effort. With major works of magic like this, in addition to numerical priority, it was willpower and mental-image strength that would determine the ultimate winner.

  For several seconds, the blue chunk of ice and the golden spiral held firm at equal distance from their white-hot intersection point, but they gradually grew closer. Thanks to the overwhelming light and ear-splitting roaring, it was impossible to tell whether it was the cube crushing the drill with its overwhelming weight, or the drill gouging out the ice.